1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to painting systems and more particularly to paint manufacturing, paint application and paint product data acquisition and processing.
2. Description
Operations within automotive painting contain many devices and process controllers that chiefly work independently to achieve their individual goals. Moreover, data is individually obtained from them without a structured framework to synthesize the data so that an overall systems analysis of the painting system can be performed.
Information from automotive painting facilities is not only difficult to synthesize for an overall systems perspective, but the information leaves the "hermetic" environment of these painting facilities with great difficulty. Outside sources, such as remote customer sites, need access to this synthesized information so that they can make informed decisions about certain operational characteristics of the automotive painting factories. For instance, customers wish to know how well their experimental painting products are performing in the automotive factory environment as well as the paint manufacturers and developers. Also lacking are the tools needed by the remote sites to "fine tune" operational parameters in order to fix painting operations or chemistries that are not in tolerance with such predefined standards as MSDS standards. Accordingly, there is a need to overcome these and other disadvantages exhibited by previous approaches to operating paint-related facilities.